Actel announces availability of RTAX-DSP prototype FPGAs

SAN FRANCISCOActel Corp. announced the availability of RTAX-DSP prototype FPGAs, said to enable hardware demonstration and timing validation of designs targeted to Actel's RTAX-DSP space-flight FPGAs.

The RTAX-DSP prototype devices have the same pin assignment, mechanical footprint and identical timing properties across the full military temperature range (-55 degrees C to 125 degrees C) as their space-qualified counterparts, according to Actel (Mountain View, Calif.).

RTAX-DSP space-flight FPGAs add embedded radiation-tolerant multiply-accumulate blocks to the RTAX-S product family, Actel said. The result is an increase in device performance and utilization when implementing arithmetic functions, such as those encountered in hardware DSP algorithms, without sacrificing reliability or radiation tolerance, according to the company.

RTAX-DSP FPGAs feature up to 120 multiply-accumulate DSP mathblocks, protected against radiation-induced single event upsets and single event transients, according to Actel. The RTAX-DSP FPGAs use the same 0.15 micrometer UMC wafer fabrication process and the same antifuse programmable interconnect technology that are used in the RTAX-S FPGA family, which is now accumulating space-flight heritage on as many as nine space programs, according to the firm.